By Roger McKinney
Globe Staff Writer
COLUMBUS, Kan. —
The chief of the Neutral Lands Cherokee group has been charged with performing a sex act with a child.
Ray Golden, 73, of Baxter Springs, is charged with felony indecent solicitation of a child, alleging that he engaged in oral sex with a child between the ages of 14 and 16 on July 1.
Cherokee County Attorney John Bullard filed the charge in Cherokee County District Court.
The Neutral Lands Cherokee, based in Baxter Springs, is a non-federalized American Indian group. It was organized in 1998 and is not part of the Cherokee Nation. The group purchased a 14,500-square-foot building in Baxter Springs in 2005. A $300,000 renovation project was done on the building in 2007, using $215,000 in tax credits from the state of Kansas.
The group is named for the Cherokee Neutral Lands in what is now Cherokee and Crawford counties where members of the Cherokee tribe lived before the Civil War. The tribe left Kansas during the Civil War, siding with the Confederacy.
Someone who answered the phone at the group’s office declined comment on the chief’s charges.
Baxter Springs police investigated the case.
Golden was released from the Cherokee County Jail after posting $25,000 bond.
